We were born to be poets
We, the kids with the wild ideas.
We weren’t supposed to be writing opinion essays for school
These essays have to follow rules and we were born to break the rules.

Our ideas are like birds that cry love and freedom and madness.
These birds are not meant to be captured into paper cages
They are meant to fly, get into people’s heads and grow until the person can’t take it anymore.

Until they want to scream at the top of their lungs.
Until they want to change.
We were born to write the world down as it is not as you want to hear it
You say I have a gift,
The gift of speech.
But listen,
It is not a gift.
It is a ghost that keeps you awake at night.
When everything is too much
And you try to make art out of your pain but the pain is always there

It is not a gift,
It is the monster under my bed.
I was born this way,
With a bleeding heart
My blood turned into ink
And ink turned into words
Words that fly around my room at night
And when they get out of the open window they become birds.